For anyone who didn’t click on the last link in my apology about being my brother, it went to the wikipedia entry on April Fool’s day.
Personally, I very much enjoy being taken in by a good prank, because for a moment I get to live in this crazy alternate reality where cool things happen. My favorite ones are the slow, dawning awareness ones.
Like Diana Rowland’s happy news that her book My Life as White Trash Zombie was going to be adapted as a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber. With a cast that included Hugh Jackman. Who wouldn’t want to live in the world where she got to attend table readings with Mr. Jackman?
It’s like fiction stepping out of the pages of a book and into our lives, just for a little while.
But… given that I caught more people that I expected to with my joke this year, I thought I would post my rules for what makes a good prank.
1. It doesn’t scare anyone.
2. It doesn’t raise false hopes.
3. It doesn’t hurt.
4. You have to fess up.
An example of #1 that someone I know actually pulled. He faked his own death so that his girlfriend would come in to find him. That is seriously, seriously twisted. Not funny. Not even a little funny.
#2. Calling someone to tell them their novel was going to be published. That would be evil.
#3. Hand buzzers and Kick Me signs. Physical and emotional pain are right out.
#4. Oh come on… if I let you believe that I was really my brother and you told other people, that would just be mean.
What was your favorite prank this year?
My faves were all of Google’s pranks. Between 8-Bit Google Maps for NES and the Really Advanced Search I was cackling like a mad woman.
You do realize that you’re going to be called “Mary the sister” by me whenever I see you at a con now, right? 😛
My faves were all of Google’s pranks. Between 8-Bit Google Maps for NES and the Really Advanced Search I was cackling like a mad woman.
You do realize that you’re going to be called “Mary the sister” by me whenever I see you at a con now, right? 😛
My faves were all of Google’s pranks. Between 8-Bit Google Maps for NES and the Really Advanced Search I was cackling like a mad woman.
You do realize that you’re going to be called “Mary the sister” by me whenever I see you at a con now, right? 😛
My faves were all of Google’s pranks. Between 8-Bit Google Maps for NES and the Really Advanced Search I was cackling like a mad woman.
You do realize that you’re going to be called “Mary the sister” by me whenever I see you at a con now, right? 😛
My faves were all of Google’s pranks. Between 8-Bit Google Maps for NES and the Really Advanced Search I was cackling like a mad woman.
You do realize that you’re going to be called “Mary the sister” by me whenever I see you at a con now, right? 😛
I loved the Google pranks as well. I was disappointed the BBC didn’t do one this year, since theirs are always brilliant.
Yours is my favorite so far (yesterday was far too busy to watch the nets, and I’m catching up). It actually made me laugh out loud. Thanks for the good chuckle. 😀
I’ve been surprised by the number of people that it caught. I’m glad it gave you a chuckle.
In all fairness, I happen to know Dan Wells and Brandon Sanderson personally, which is an advantage to figuring out that it was a prank most do not have.
I liked the ones on Tor including the Sense and Conanability one. But my favorite happened at work.
I work at a Hospital in Clinical Engineering. We got an online work request from a “Dave Bowman”, asking us to go to the Pod bay cause the Pod bay doors wouldn’t open.
I replied that “I can’t do that Dave”
and then sent a drawing of a black monolith with the quotation “My God, it’s full of stars”
Of course this is all from 2001 a Space Odyssey.
The best pranks are the ones you get to play a long with.
Ahahaha! That’s great. That’s exactly the kind of thing I enjoy.